With their light rifles the boys occasionally were permitted to pick off some game, usually wild ducks or geese, of which there were numbers along the watercourses. But nothing was shot wantonly. Many a time, youthful fingers itched on the trigger, only to be restrained by the thought of the cruel uselessness of shooting merely for sport.
Of other inhabitants in this vast northern wilderness, none were encountered. And at this the boys marvelled. It was as if they had the world to themselves. They could not understand it. To them it was a paradise.
“Wait till you see this in Winter,” said Farnum grimly. “Or rather, pray that you never do. It is a land of perpetual night, and the temperature is so low that when you stop moving you must have a fire or you will freeze to death. And it isn’t every day that you can travel. For this isn’t a land of tame Winter as you boys know it. Out of the north comes storms succeeding storm, pitiless in severity. Even the creatures of the wild cannot stand it, in many cases, and drift to the south.”
“But how about the Eskimo?” asked Jack. “This is their country, isn’t it? How do they stand it?”
“Sometimes they don’t,” said Farnum. “When the hunting is poor and famine stalks through the Eskimo village, only the hardiest survive.”
“Where do they live, anyway?” struck in Frank. “Why aren’t they around here? Why haven’t we seen any?”
“They may have seen us,” said Farnum, “and are avoiding us. They are a timorous people, know the white man only by tradition. To the Eskimo, the white man is a sort of god, at least to the Eskimo of all this country north of us. Back along the coast of Alaska, of course, some sort of contact has been made. But these Eskimo never come in touch with the whites. They are a migratory people. In Summer they range far and wide on the hunt. In the Winter, they retire to the edge of the Arctic Ocean.”
“But why?” asked Bob, in surprise. “I should think that would be the very place for them to steer away from.”
“Oh, no,” said Farnum. “You see, all game goes far to the south in Winter, so the Eskimo goes to the ocean because it is the home of the only game left—the seal. He builds his snow house or igloo and camps near the air holes of the seal, spearing them as they come up for air. Occasionally he slays a polar bear, too.”